Six Degrees
by strayphoenix
Summary: That cute firebender boy keeps showing up in Korra's life, and she can't tell if it's wonderful or terrible and is terrified to find out which it is. AKA the Modern AU where Mako has a gazillion jobs and Korra keeps running into him at all of them.


The first time you see him, he's taking your order for a Venti Caramel Frappuccino, even though it's close to zero degrees outside and the snow is still drifting softly over Republic City. Asami thinks you're crazy. You shrug because, hey, you're hot blooded. What can be done?

The Fire Nation boy behind the cash register raises a brow at the order. Other than that, he doesn't pay much attention to you because Asami Sato is your best friend, and there isn't a person Asami talks to that doesn't fall even just a little in love with her.

Asami's order sounds like flirting; it makes him blush, the color touching his ears. His hair is gel-spiked deliberately, like it wanted to be on fire today and he lazily obliged it. Even then, the tufts at the back of his neck stick out at odd angles from the red scarf he wears indoors. It isn't part of the Starbucks outfit, and you know from your own disastrous attempt at coffee shop retail that Starbucks is a Nazi about their uniforms. It's a miracle they let him wear it.

When Asami hands him coins, they slip through his stick fingers and he awkwardly dives behind the cash register to grab them from the mat under his feet. When he resurfaces, he's redder than his scarf. He looks like a cornered baby dragon and the image sticks in your mind as you and Asami walk over to pick up the drinks at the other counter.

"He's cute," Asami says.

"You think everyone is cute," you say. You nab a packet of brown sugar, rip it open, and dispense a little on your tongue.

Asami doesn't deny the statement. You watch HIM tend to the next customer, his neck muscles pulling tight as he resists the impulse to turn his head towards you and Asami.

When your drink comes, you dump the rest of the sugar packet into it and drink it fast enough to give you a brain freeze.

"Korra!" Asami admonishes, nursing her tiny hot chocolate. She's not the only one giving you a look. But the boy behind the register refuses to look your way.

"Hot blooded," you say, rubbing the bridge of your nose with a smirk.

* * *

When you see him again, it's because you're doing the strangest rule-breaking you've done in your sixteen years of being amazing.

Tenzin insists that if you want to join a gym, it has to be Lady of America. You have a reputation for picking fights with boys that try to impress you and your parents will kill your host father if anything happens to you while you're studying abroad in the city. With the best intentions, Tenzin buys you the membership himself.

But L.A. Fitness has better equipment and racquetball courts and, really, you're way overdue for punching a boy in the face anyway. With New Year's just around the corner, the gym is bound to have all sorts of discounts and promotions. So you tell Tenzin you've joined another club at school and jog the fifteen blocks in the snow from the academy to the L.A. Fitness in Dragon Flats.

It takes you a second, stripping off your bag and light winter coat, to recognize the boy sitting at the front desk. He's wearing a black polo with the gym name embroidered over his breast. It's small on him so that the buttons strain when he sighs, the curve of his pectorals clearly defined through the fabric, the sleeves pinching into his biceps. You consider that they put him at the front desk for a very good reason.

You don't even have to finish running through the faces of all the boys in your sophomore class when you spot the folded red scarf draped over the back of his chair and you remember Monday's trip to Starbucks.

With your best Samantha impression, you flip a wolf tail over your shoulder and swagger up to the desk.

" _Hey_ there. So Starbucks finally dumped you with yesterday's coffee grinds, huh?"

You're used to people looking at you like you're insane. But it stings a little when he does it because, damn, you were sure you _had_ this one.

"Do we know each other?" he says with a raised brow. His eyes are golden, like caramel before it sets.

You point to yourself.

"Venti Frappuccino."

Somehow, that works.

"Uh… Right?" The word tips up in a question as he struggles to remember. "Monday. Came in with a brunette, yeah? Green eyes?"

"And I ordered a Venti Frapp," you remind him proudly, drawing the conversation topic back to yourself.

"...Right." The syllable is solid now. Confusion passed, he pulls over a gym application. "Here to sign up for a membership?"

"Yup! I bet they put you up front because—"

He abruptly hands you a clipboard with a stack of sheets. "Take this over there, fill it out and turn it back in to me."

You frown. You want to make him blush and stammer. It looked so easy when Asami did it. Then again, everything looks easy when Asami does it.

Refusing to budge, you set the clipboard on the upper lip of the desk and start filling out your name.

"So Starbucks fired ya, huh? Bastards."

He's already resumed making spreadsheets on the computer. With an annoyed glance, he corrects you.

"No."

"But you're here."

"I work here Tuesdays and Thursdays."

You prop your elbow on the application and hope he doesn't notice as you struggle for a moment to tip your shoulders _just_ right.

"You know, I used to work at Starbucks."

His types aggressively and keeps his eyes on the screen.

"Miss, I'm on the clock. If you don't mind, I have work to do."

Your shoulders sag.

"Oh."

"Just hand the application back to me when you're finished."

You take the clipboard and shuffle off to one side of the desk. When you hand it back, he doesn't look up.

"Thanks. Pass by on the way out and we'll get a card printed."

With a mutter, you stalk out to the racquetball courts, miffed and angry at yourself. And when a tall Water Tribe boy with a long bang gelled meticulously to one side tries to cat-call you over for a one-on-one match, you deck him and don't even pretend that you came to the gym for anything else.

Tenzin is going to ground you for the rest of your life, and your parents are going to want you to come right back home, and Asami is going to try to talk you into anger management classes again.

But the boy at the front desk is the one who has to wrestle you down and throw you out. And there's a silver lining in that.

* * *

Your estimates are slightly off. Tenzin grounds you for the rest of this life and at least two future incarnations. Asami drives you only to and from the academy, and it doesn't matter that she wants to help you break grounding because Tenzin has Jinora install Lojack on your phone. And unlike your other host siblings, Jinora can't be bought off. She codes like Fort Knox too.

A reprieve comes when Tenzin is away on the council and Pema's pregnant feet are too swollen to run necessary errands. She promises to vouch for you and gives you the keys to the minivan along with a shopping list as long as you are tall. You don't even care that driving in the city makes you shit your pants. It's practically a vacation.

At the Target in Kuei Gardens, you load up two whole shopping carts with things from Pema's list. You pick up a bungee cable from a shelf to tie the two carts together and by the time you're done, you almost regret volunteering.

Until you spot him at one of the registers. The polo he wears now is red and actually his size. In the belt loops of his black pants, he's threaded the red scarf like a sash. A small white target indicates where his heart is. Beneath it, there's a name you're too far away to read.

He's the shortest line and, in the end, your exhaustion wins out over your embarrassment. You push your conjoined carts over to his lane and hope for the best.

By the way his eyes narrow, you safely assume he remembers you.

"Hi," you mumble.

"Venti Frappuccino," he acknowledges.

You start to unload onto the tread and mutter a confirmation into the depths of your bottomless shopping cart. Maybe if you dig in deep enough, it'll swallow you whole.

"Here to clock another customer?"

His voice is frosty. It rubs you the wrong way.

"Hey, that Tahno guy had it coming, alright?"

He glances at a manager nearby and visibly swallows down his retort. He then grabs the first thing on the tread, diapers, and scans it gruffly, shoving it into an empty plastic bag.

You don't say anything as he keeps scanning the infinite list of items. The people behind you start to grumble in line and change to other lanes. The silence grates more on your nerves than his tone did.

"Did I get you fired?"

He doesn't answer.

"I mean, isn't your job as a front desk person to scan for crazies like me?"

He starts to roll his eyes then focuses very intently on how to stack the dozen packages of vegan soy burgers you've purchased. His neck is doing that thing where it looks like he's going to rip out of his shirt.

Asami's coyness can go to hell.

"What's your damage? I'm only trying to have a conversation."

He shoves Campbell soup cans into plastic bags like he's force feeding a polar bear dog. You take a look at his name tag. Mako.

You think he brings this on himself as you pop up on your toes and lean over the credit card machine, smirking.

"You liiiiiike me or something?"

He slams a can on the metal counter and glares.

"Are you stalking me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. In order to stalk you, I'd actually have to like you. And to do that, you'd actually need to have a personality."

Another Target worker passes by, a boy your age carrying a boxed flat screen TV over his shoulder like it's made of paper mâché. He barks a laugh.

"She's got your number, bro!"

"Shut the fuck up, Bolin."

The manager on the next lane gives Mako a _look_ and he rings you up like he's signing his last will and testament. He swipes Tenzin's credit card and prints out a receipt long enough to wear as a scarf.

"Have a nice day," he says mechanically, and starts ringing up the next customer before you've even pushed your carts an inch. You stick your tongue out at him.

As you struggle to get your carts in the elevator, the boy who'd passed by with the TV earlier jogs over to help you.

"Sorry about Mako," he says. "There was only so much charisma in our DNA pool and—surprise, surprise!—I got it all."

You've known him all of twenty seconds and already you want to adopt him.

"So your brother is this much of an asshole to everyone."

He rubs his chin to consider that question. The sleeve of his polo shifts so you can see the border of a blue geometric tattoo wrapping around his upper arm. You've always wanted ink, but your father and Tenzin and half the world leaders are convinced that it would be the first step down a slippery slope that will lead to the mass extinction of all life on the planet.

"No," Bolin says at last. "He's being especially dickish to you."

The two of you shove the carts through the snow and load up everything into the back of the minivan in ten minutes. Because your parents didn't raise you as a savage, you pull some yuans out of your pocket for him. He stops you.

"I'm shooting the next episode of my web series this weekend and could use some extras. Come by and we'll call it even?"

"What's it about?"

He jumps in one of the empty shopping carts and stands like he's on a cliff, striking a pose.

"Nuktuk! Hero of the Post-Apocalyptic South! Champion of the Downtrodden and Scorer of Chicks Everywhere!"

You snort.

"This is a web series?"

Bolin alights from his mountaintop.

"You'll love it. It's awesome."

"I'll think about it."

He beams at you like you're the best thing to happen to him all day and walks back towards Target, pushing the empty carts. A green flyer falls deliberately from his pocket and onto the snow.

"OH NO, WHAT IS THIS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT PIECE OF PAPER I HAVE JUST DROPPED," he shouts over his shoulder. "TOO BAD MY HANDS ARE FULL OR ELSE I WOULD TOTALLY REACH DOWN AND PICK IT UP."

You wait until he's inside and walk over to the flyer, grinning. "Looking for Extras for Super Awesome Web Series." There's an apartment address, a time, and a date. If you play your cards right, Tenzin might let you out of the house for a 'job interview'.

* * *

Saturday morning, Asami drives you all the way to Phoenix Heights in her favorite Mustang. She eyes every block of the Fire Nation borough like you'll both be carjacked if you so much as blink.

"Are you sure about this?" she asks for the fifteenth time. "This place looks like serial killer central."

"I'll be fine, Sami."

"That's not what I asked."

The address on the flyer is a rundown housing development and Bolin is sitting on the stoop, dribbling a basketball on the packed snow. Beside him, a Water Tribe man with a ridiculous looking director's cap is talking animatedly, and a bespectacled lady carries a handheld camera as a roll of green screen pokes out of her backpack.

You jump out of the car before Asami can double check your intentions again.

"Pick me up at two, okay?"

Asami's lips press into a flat line that either means she's really mad or trying _really_ hard not to be mad.

"Be _safe_."

Bolin comes over and throws a giddy arm around you in response.

"Trust me, Miss Total Stranger in the Car. She couldn't be in better hands."

You and Bolin, along with director/writer/producer Varrick and first/second/third assistant director Zhu Li, spend the morning trekking through the snow to various locations on the frozen waterfront, looking for the perfect place to film the most brilliant hero/villain show-off YouTube has ever seen. As Varrick debates each location for twenty minutes and Zhu Li sets up and breaks down the camera and green screen time and time again, you and Bolin chat.

"Yeah, I'm saving up money to make it a full sleeve by graduation," he says, showing you the entirety of the geometric band on his arm.

You bounce a rubber ball you'd found lodged into the frozen sand on the shore.

"You're so fucking lucky your parents let you get ink. My parents would go berserk if I came back from the City with a tattoo."

"Well, uh, it's just me and Mako. _He_ wasn't too happy with it, but it was my savings so there wasn't much he could do."

Bolin, bless his heart, makes it easy for you to read between the lines. The bouncing ball hits a crack in the sidewalk and jumps out into traffic.

"Sorry," you say.

He shrugs. Either the wound is too old for him to feel or he's playing it off for your sake.

"They died a long time ago. We're fine now that Mako's eighteen. Hey! You should come by the apartment after this! It is _pre-tee_ awesome."

The way he enunciates "pretty" makes you laugh and dislodges the lump that was forming in your throat. You think Bolin very well may have inherited charisma genes from several generations of his family tree.

He tells you about his girlfriend who lives in Zaofu and, by Bolin's estimates, is the most beautiful, talented, and intelligent girl to ever walk the earth. They met on OkCupid and Skype twice a week. Her mother's a mayor.

At last, Varrick decides on shooting at an abandoned warehouse with a view of Downtown through the shattered windows. From her backpack, Zhu Li pulls out an impossibly huge amount of full costumes folded into Ziploc bags.

Varrick designates you as every single extra in the scene. It's exhausting and the most fun you've had in months, even if Varrick keeps shouting at you because Bolin's ad libbing makes you break character with side-splitting laughter every other line.

After a couple hours, they call it a wrap. Varrick and Zhu Li head off their own way. You stay sitting in the old warehouse with Bolin. He asks you about your favorite YouTube channels and you mention off-hand that you grew up in the South Pole where internet was dial-up at best, and nonexistent for days at a time at worst. You almost cried when you realized Netflix loaded in less than an hour over Wi-Fi.

He takes pity on your technologically stunted soul and offers you a pirated Adobe Premiere which he insists on showing you how to use over Bagel Bites.

Which is how you end up sitting on Bolin's tattered couch, hunched over his bootleg MacBook with a plate of thirty tiny pizza bagels between you, when Mako staggers through the front door. He's in a solid black t-shirt with the word SECURITY across the back and is standing upright by sheer willpower alone.

"Long night," he mumbles at the floor, shuffling to the kitchen. "Don't want to talk about it."

It takes you a second to realize he hasn't acknowledged you because he can't see you in the peripheral of his black eye.

Bolin winces but keeps his mouth shut. You're not as smart and trail Mako into the kitchen, carrying the plate of Bagel Bites. His red scarf is fisted into his back pocket as he faces away from you, trying to pour cereal into a chipped IKEA bowl and missing the bowl.

You hold out the plate of food to his back.

"Small circular bread with tomato sauce and processed cheese?"

He pauses. Probably debating whether or not he's reached the point of delirium where he's imagining that the annoying Water Tribe girl from Starbucks and L.A. Fitness and Target is now in his apartment at noon on a Saturday.

Too tired to even glare, he turns to face you. But before he can say anything, you hold out the plate again.

"Pizza bagels are peace offering."

"...How did you get in my house?"

"I was helping Bolin with Nuktuk."

"With what?"

You imitate Bolin's enthusiastic tone.

"Nuktuk! Hero of the Post-Apocalyptic South! Champion of the Downtrodden and Scorer of Chicks Everywhere!"

He winces at your voice.

"Again I say, _what_?"

You push the plate of food into his hand.

"Don't worry about it. My friend is picking me up in twenty minutes anyway. The brunette with the green eyes? Actually, never mind. Eat these and go the fuck to sleep."

He stares at you and at the plate like he doesn't understand what either of you are. His lip is split and bleeding. He looks a bazillion years older than all your past lives combined.

You know you're not supposed to tell people who you are. It's rule number one that your parents and the White Lotus and Tenzin had all insisted on when they agreed to let you go to Republic City for school. Asami knows the truth and the academy principal knows enough and TMZ is going to have a stroke when they spot you on Bolin's soon-to-be super fucking famous web series. But looking in Mako's unfocused eyes, you suddenly want to tell him. Because after a day with Bolin, you understand so much about him. You want someone to understand you too.

Instead, you grab a bagel and push it up against his lips. You try oh so very hard not to stare at his lips.

"Peace offering," you say again. "Eat."

He listens, letting your fingers brush against the smooth insides of his lips as you place the food between his teeth. After a long moment of thoughtful chewing, he sharply looks at the floor and blushes so hard the color shoots straight across his cheeks and to his ears.

And really, isn't that what you were looking for all along?

"Thanks," he mutters.

He shuffles by you to parts unknown, cradling the plate of food like a toddler.

Your phone buzzes; Asami is outside.

In the living room, you take your activation code from Bolin and hug him goodbye. He gets your phone number and promises to call you up when they start shooting the next episode.

"Oh! And I'll text you when Varrick finishes all the post-production stuff and puts the episode up online!"

Hiding your smirk, you tell him not to sweat it. Somehow, you'll know when it's up.

* * *

Even though all your meetings with Mako have been coincidental, your next one still surprises you.

There isn't much ground to run Naga on in Air Temple Island so every other morning before going to the academy, you take the Temple Island Ferry to La Ridge and let her run around the big park there. It isn't as big as the park just north of Downtown, but it's flatter and, in the snow, feels more like back home.

On the way back to the ferry, you stop by the pet store at the corner. They sell seal-jerky treats and Naga loves them. The Water Tribe boy that usually works the morning there lets you bring her inside, even though he's not supposed to.

When Naga bounds ahead of you to the little pet boutique and waits to be let in, you're disappointed to find that the Water Tribe boy isn't in today. That frown turns upside down, however, when you realize who IS in.

"Okay, now who's stalking who, smart guy?"

Mako looks up from an ultimate fighting magazine at your voice. Surprise, recognition, and embarrassment flash across his face, in that order.

"Oh, hey. You. Uh, I work here."

You kick the snow off your boots on the mat. From outside, Naga whines impatiently.

"Is it cool if Naga comes in? Where's Hasook today?"

"Hungover as fuck. I'm covering his shift. And your polar bear dog can't come in." He points to the sign on the door. "She exceeds the maximum weight of—"

"But Hasook always lets her come in."

"I'm not Hasook. I actually care if I get fired."

"She's really good," you insist. "She just likes to play with the fire ferrets through the glass. Please? Just a couple minutes?"

He frowns and glances around the empty store. When he does, you can see that his eye is still a little swollen from last week and that the line of his jaw is sharper in the morning light.

"Five minutes," he says. "And don't let her spook the owl cats."

Grinning, you whistle the all clear and Naga bounds in and straight to the fire ferrets pen. Four of the five critters cower and hide in their plastic houses. The only one who doesn't, who never does, comes bouncing forward to touch noses with Naga through the glass.

"Huh," Mako says. "That's Bolin's fire ferret."

"His ferret?"

You walk over to the register and lean your hip against it, watching Naga, and out of the corner of our eye, watching Mako too. He looks pensive.

"Yeah, that's the one he's always talking about saving up to buy. He's already got a name picked out and everything."

The fire ferret in question scurries to one side of the pen as Naga follows intently. Then he scurries to the other end, playfully taunting the predator fifty times it's size.

"Bolin has good taste," you joke.

Mako frowns again.

"Yeah, he picked the one animal with less survival instincts than him."

You laugh boldly. By Mako's stunned look, he didn't mean to be funny, and the thought of that only makes you laugh more.

He blinks at you a few times, like he's realized that he was being normal with you and wants to ruin it.

"Uh, can I help you with something in the store?"

Stifling your giggles, you point to the treats section.

"Just my usual. Five pounds of seal jerky treats for Naga."

He looks Naga over thoroughly.

"Only five? You know we sell fifteen and twenty five pound bags, right?"

"You do?"

Mako grumbles something that sounds like 'fucking Hasook' and vaguely gestures that you follow him to the treats section. You happily comply.

In a few minutes, he's attaching a twenty five pound bag of seal jerky to Naga's harness as you keep her attention away from tearing into it.

"Where's your scarf today?" you ask. His eyes look different without the muted red material somewhere on his person picking up the color.

If he's flattered you noticed, he doesn't show it.

"In my backpack," he grunts, fasting twine. "It is not a toy. Or a scratching post."

Naga wines, looking longingly at the bag. You direct her attention back at you and rub her cheeks and snout.

"I know it's your favorite, girl, but this has to last us at least a few weeks, okay? I'll give you one when we get home."

Mako finishes up and walks back behind the counter, pulling out a small pair of tongs.

"Here. She can have some of these for being so well behaved."

He selects and carefully pulls out a handful of iced dog treats, decorated with little bones and fire hydrants in frosting. You take them and hold them out for Naga to inspect. She tries one, decides it's better than seal jerky, and the rest are gone in seconds. Naga licks half your face in appreciation.

"Thanks," you say to Mako. "How much do I owe you?"

Putting the tongs away, he rings you up.

"It'll be thirty for the bag. The treats are on the house."

You grin, teasing.

"Isn't that going to get you fired?"

He points to Naga.

"Not any more than letting her in here. Call it a thank you for helping Bolin with Nuktuk."

One corner of his lips turns up in a smile. And a smile looks utterly wonderful on him. It makes him a whole different person.

Apparently, it makes you a whole different person too, because your brain-to-mouth filter completely dislodges and you blurt:

"Do you want to go out with me sometime?"

A long beat passes between the two of you, in which you do not remember how to breathe properly. Or at all.

Finally, he clears his throat.

"Well, actually..."

"You have a girlfriend," you interrupt. "Right! Right, sorry, I'm an idiot, I shouldn't have said anything, can we pretend I didn't say anything?"

In the time it takes him to recover from your onslaught of words, you kick yourself at least a dozen times.

"Actually," he tries again, "I'm really busy these days."

"Right! Duh! Right, you work a gazillion jobs! I'm so sorry, I am SO so sorry."

You scramble to pull thirty yuans from the money clip you insist on using instead of a purse, to give him the money and get the hell out of there, when he suddenly stops you in your tracks with his own question.

"Have you ever busked before?"

You've never heard that word before in your life. Busking could be a sex move for all you know.

"I busk Monday nights on the K Train," he goes on, "after my shift at Starbucks. Usually at the Port Pian Dao stop. If you wanted to, you could, uh, join me? ...if you wanted to?"

You're too confused to speak for a moment, then your ability to talk without consulting your brain manages to come to your rescue.

"I have an event Sunday night and I'm still grounded for punching Tahno. But, uh, I'll manage. Actually. Monday sounds fine."

He looks you over, just like he looked Naga over. You've never seen yourself blush, but you wonder if the color reaches your ears too.

"You can meet me at Starbucks?" he says. "Around eight when my shift ends? We can...walk over together?"

He still sounds like he's asking questions. What a dork.

"Sure," you say.

"Okay."

"Great."

You put your money on the counter and gently tug Naga away from the fire ferret still wanting to play.

"Monday night," you say.

He nods and puts away your money and picks up the magazine he'd been reading when you arrived.

As you walk out back into the snow to head home and get ready for school, you wonder if, in all of human history, anyone's grin has ever actually split their face in half.

* * *

Sunday night at Kuang's Cuisine is the absolute last place on earth that you want to run into him.

Especially on the night when the restaurant has to hire security to keep the reporters at bay because you're President Raiko's guest of honor. Especially when Hiroshi Sato is at the far end of the table talking to the too-attractive-for-his-own-good Prince Iroh of the Fire Nation, and Tenzin is on your right correcting your posture every few seconds, and Asami is dressed more fabulously than you in every possible way, and all in all, you would like very much to be literally anywhere else on the planet.

But you spot him talking to the Maître D and collecting menus for your table. Heartbeat running amok, you hastily hide yourself in your hair and pray you're as unrecognizable in makeup and a dress as all the tabloids seem to imply.

The only person who notices your sudden Mako-induced panic attack is Asami, but Tenzin sat her a couple seats away from you on purpose.

Even though they must have prepped him, even though he HAS to recognize most of the people at the table, he starts handing out menus and, mechanically, asks the most stupid question he possibly could.

"Welcome to Kuang's Cuisine. I'm Mako, I'll be your server for tonight. Are you celebrating anything special?"

"Why yes," Tenzin explains, tapping his hand on the table to remind you to straighten up. You want to sink into the floor. "We're celebrating the one year anniversary of our Avatar being in Republic City."

"Oh," Mako says, and passes Tenzin a menu.

Your host father clears his voice in that way you've come to know means he's preparing for a lecture.

"Do you know who the Avatar is, son?"

You stare at the piece of bread you are tearing apart on your plate with all the ferocity of a platypus bear dismembering prey.

Asami comes to your rescue in true Asami Sato fashion.

"Excuse me, are these the specials for tonight? My Chinese is a little rusty and the last thing I want is to accidentally order sea prunes."

Mako excuses himself from Tenzin, absentmindedly places a menu in front of you, and passes over to explain the specials to Asami. He doesn't appear to recognize her from Starbucks. Tenzin taps you again to straighten up.

The next hour passes at a crawl. You divide your attention between faking interest in topics everyone is talking about and keeping an eye trained on wherever in the room Mako is. You don't drink your water so he doesn't have to refill it. You let Tenzin place your order. You do everything in your power to be invisible when Mako is in the dining area.

It's not enough though, because when dinner comes, Tenzin insists on a toast.

He stands. The table, the room, and nearly the whole damn restaurant goes painfully quiet.

Tenzin toasts your good fortune. He tells the story of how you decided to come to the city and become a citizen of the world. He talks about how good of a person you were, when you were his father. He tells the entire universe they should expect great things from you and how you're never ever going to let them down.

The table toasts to you, along with scattered individuals throughout the restaurant, and you sheepishly lift your full glass of cider back at them.

As everyone settles back down to eat, you spot Mako at the door of the kitchen. He's squinting at you, frowning like he's figuring something out.

The spirit of every bad decision you've ever made possesses you, and you give him a half-hearted wave.

His eyes widen in recognition.

You want to die. Your next reincarnation can't come soon enough.

Mako turns to the waiter next to him, whispers something, and disappears back into the kitchen.

The damage done, you eat your fish without looking up at anyone. You ignore Tenzin's taps until he has to actually tell you to straighten up. When everyone begins to finish their food, a different waiter comes to the table to clear the plates.

You must not be able to keep the disappointment off your face because, few chairs down, Asami stands and looks right at you.

"I'm going to the bathroom. You need to go?"

You excuse yourself and get up. Asami explains to the over eager security guards that she has a concealed carry license, that she's _always_ packing heat, even in her ball gown, and that she and you can probably make it to the bathroom and back without a kidnapping attempt.

There's only one stall and Asami slips inside first, but not without making you promise to tell her what's going on as soon as she's done.

As you wait, staring at your very uncomfortable heels, you notice the nearby emergency exit door is held slightly ajar by a small block of wood. Curious, you peek through it. It leads to an alley.

Mako is out there, leaning against a wall and smoking in the snow. His red scarf is thrown around his neck in a facsimile of keeping warm. There's a small collection of cigarette butts at his feet, even as he finishes his latest one and grinds it out under his heel.

You've never smoked a cigarette in your life, but you debate asking him for one, if only for an opening to talk with him, to explain. The apology is crawling around your throat despite the fact that you're not quite sure what you want to apologize for.

He fights with his lighter to spark. The next cigarette is already held between his chapped lips. You think that the sharpness of his jaw and cheeks and eyes all smooth out in the glow of fire.

He mutters to himself.

"The Avatar. Great job, asshole. You stupid, fucking moron."

His words bury themselves into your lungs. You slump and turn back inside. Accidentally, you jostle the bar on the door.

Mako cuts a look at the door just as you cut a look at him. Your eyes meet for a fraction of a second before you jerk back and speed walk to your table, promise to Asami forgotten.

The rest of the evening is a blur. You dedicate all your attention to the political and religious conversations being had around you and not to the way your body is failing you by threatening to tremble and cry, because damn it, _damn it_ , you _had_ this one! You had him! This handsome, awkward, unusual boy who made you feel giddy and annoyed and like a normal teenage girl was yours. You had him and you fucked everything up.

Desert comes out, and it's Mako waiting on your table again. When he sets your plate of chocolate mochi ice cream in front of you, you can't look at him.

All you see is his gloved hand as it tenderly adjusts your spoon.

"Thanks," you mumble.

You feel him nod in your peripheral, then depart to get the check.

Tenzin has you calculate the tip because he likes to keep your math skills sharp. You round way up, and he doesn't say anything.

* * *

Jinora comes to your room on Monday after school, mimicking her father's placid expression. As you pull out your headphones and pause your current episode of _Mythbusters_ , Jinora very calmly agrees to take the LoJack off your phone in exchange for a favor.

"What kind of favor?"

Your host sister turns a little pink.

"There's this Earth Kingdom boy at school. I want him to come over for dinner. I need your help in convincing Daddy."

You sag against the back of your rolling chair.

"I dunno, Jinora. Boys are overrated."

She holds out her hand for your iPhone.

"Is your total freedom overrated?"

When you were still considering going to see Mako, you had planned just to leave your phone behind in your room and risk navigating the city without it. After Kuang's, the disappointment chewing on your soul like a teething infant told you that you'd be better off skipping out altogether and drowning your sorrow in a marathon of explosions.

But considering that the entirety of your interactions with Mako have been coincidences, the fact that the spirits have placed a decision in your lap feels celestial and Avatar-y. And isn't Tenzin always on your ass about following your spiritual instincts?

You bite your lip.

"What do you need me to do?"

An agreement is reached. In exchange for suspending LoJack on your phone, you'll talk Tenzin into letting Kai come over for dinner, even if it means strapping your host father down and lecturing him about freedom and peace and allowing his daughter to date before she's thirty.

When Jinora brings the topic up at dinner, that's practically what it takes. Tenzin pitches a fit. It takes an hour for the combined force of his daughter, wife, and reincarnated father get through his skull, and he finally concedes. Jinora throws her arms around him in a hug.

Then she pointedly asks if you want to come up to her room and play some computer games with her. You say yes and a few minutes later, are successfully sneaking out of Jinora's window and jogging down to the ferry.

On the way, you call Asami and update her. Somebody ought to know what you're really up to and it ought to be Asami.

"What are you going to tell him?" she asks when you've filled her in.

You sigh, leaning up against the ferry rail.

"Words. I don't know."

"Well," she says, "you are right about one thing in all this."

"Just one thing?"

"Yes." There's humor in her voice. "A previous life of yours must have stacked up some serious karma points. No one runs into the same person six times in a city of nine million people without some divine intervention involved."

Relaxing a little, you smile into the wind.

That smile lasts all of five minutes. The ferry is delayed in docking so that you have to wave down a taxi in order to get to the Starbucks before eight. It's started to snow again, hard, and traffic is crawling. You give up on the cab, pay the driver for his trouble, and run with all the grace of a newborn deer over ice and slush and snow to reach the coffee shop.

Through the fogged glass, all the chairs are up. The chorus of _nononononono_ is loud in your mind as you try to force the locked front door and get nowhere.

Before you start seriously considering breaking it down, Mako walks out from a back room. He's in a threadbare grey sweater and jeans that are more holes than fabric. He has a guitar over one shoulder and a backpack over the other. His scarf wraps snuggly around his neck as he zips up a large patchwork coat.

You knock on the glass like he's an eel fish. He looks up and stares at you, like he is, in fact, an eel fish.

The panic shoots through you at the thought that he might not open the door. You quickly fog up the glass again and write, backwards, _Can we talk?_ Except your 'e' is reversed because you don't have time to waste figuring how to flip it around. You break out your best polar bear puppy dog eyes.

Mako looks away from you, down at one of the freshly wiped tables, and seems to sigh. Then he sets the guitar and backpack down, walks over, and unlocks the door, letting you in.

"I'm sorry," you say in a rush, stumbling inside. "I was running late and the ferry was running late and I had to catch a taxi and I wasn't sure you still wanted to see me."

He closes the door again, then turns slowly around.

"Does Bolin know?"

You're still catching your breath, but you manage an audible enough noise of confusion that he goes on.

"Does Bolin know you're the Avatar?" he repeats, enunciating every syllable.

The color of his eyes looks a little more like fire and a little less like caramel. You can't look at them for long.

"No," you say to the entrance mat.

"Were you going to tell him?"

"...I thought it would be a nice surprise when he posted Nuktuk."

He's quiet to that. You want to say you're sorry again, but swallow down the words.

"The Avatar," he says solemnly.

"It's...not as crazy as the internet makes it out to be," you defend quickly. "I'm not some all-powerful goddess or the second coming of Christ, I'm just—"

"Kind of like the Dalai Lama."

His voice is calm when he says it, like he looked it up on Wikipedia preparing for this very conversation. You start to feel sick to your stomach and wish you had spent more time at dinner eating than arguing with Tenzin.

"Yeah. It's like, 'Same shit, different body'."

He chews on that.

"How do they know it's you and not someone else?"

"They have tests. Multiple choice tests."

The joke falls flat and your toes scrunch up in a hidden cringe.

Silence stretches out between you when he doesn't ask any more questions and you battle with yourself over control of your apologies.

At long last, your secret guilt wins. You lower your eyes and mumble.

"I didn't want you to know because I really like you and I think we're meant to be together."

And here it comes. The very worst part. The part where he decides that you're crazy in a don't-drink-the-Kool-Aid kind of way because you believe you're the reincarnation of a long dead holy man. Staring at the floor, you wait for his verdict.

"My parents believed in the Avatar," he says quietly.

When you look up to make sure you heard him right, he's staring at your shoes and not your face.

"I kind of lost my religion when I lost them," he goes on, "but...yeah."

You can't decide if this is better or worse than thinking you're outright crazy. You lean back against one of the tables, not trusting your legs, because this is either wonderful or terrible and you're terrified of finding out which.

"You don't think I'm insane?"

"No," he says, then amends. "Well, not because of this."

You scuff a snow boot on the freshly mopped floor.

"You're not mad?"

He sounds confused.

"Mad?"

You scuff your boot a little more intently.

"All these people believe I'm going to be this brave and wise savior person that's going to bring peace to all the nations. Meeting me in person is...typically kind of a letdown."

Your words are a whisper, but Mako tilts his gaze up to you through his lashes. Meeting his eyes, you wonder if your chest always feels this tight when he looks at you.

He tilts his chin up further to look at you directly.

"What do _you_ believe?"

Straightening up to look at him too, you chew on your lip. No one in sixteen years has ever asked you that.

"I... I think you have to believe in whatever gets you through the night."

That silence you hate comes back with a vengeance and lingers in the air like a fog.

Then, something unlocks in Mako. He looks away from you, hands burrowing deep in his pockets as a weight pressing between his shoulders. He slumps where he stands.

"You should go home."

"I want to go busk with you."

You'd looked up the word on urban dictionary as soon as you'd left the pet shop. You'd brought a full coin pouch.

But Mako shakes his head, heavy and slow.

"You don't want someone like me, Avatar Korra."

Your name on his lips is everything you could want, even with your title in front of it. It's smooth and round, like a stone on his tongue, then his tongue is all you can think about. His mouth is the lynchpin of gravity.

And that gravity pulls you forward, closer and closer until you can fist your hands in his scarf. You are brave and beautiful, you tell yourself. Like Asami. Like Samantha from _Sex and the City._

He flinches at the touch and you move quickly before he opens his big dumb mouth. With a tug, you pull him down and pop on your toes and kiss him.

And, somehow, that works.

* * *

The first day of spring in Republic City is your favorite day of the year. In the South Pole there are two seasons: winter and snowstorm season. In the spring, you can wear shorts, and overalls, and a certain range of flower print shirts that aren't too pink. In the spring, you can marvel at all the leaves emerging from what you were sure were very dead trees yesterday.

But today, you are sitting in Starbucks on your laptop, working on a paper about the Triad gangs of the last century. You are wearing a Nuktuk graphic t-shirt that Asami designed and Varrick got printed.

Mako comes over, putting up chairs and sweeping the floor. You lift your legs so he can sweep under you.

"How's the paper going?"

You make a dying whale noise.

"Korra, you've been sitting there for three hours."

"Which is two hours and fifty five minutes longer than my attention span." You shut your laptop, grinning. "Ready?"

He puts the broom away and goes to change. You pack up your computer and wait for him by the door, enjoying the simple pleasure of hearing your new Vans smacking against the flat floor.

When Mako emerges, with guitar and backpack, he's in your favorite beige polo and red scarf. At the door he takes your hand.

Together, you and Mako walk over to the Port Pian Dao subway stop. He knows more about the Triad gangs than you probably do. You jot notes down on your hands and arms as you walk and hope that maybe someone will mistake them for tattoos.

Pulling out an old beach towel, Mako sets up in his usual corner of the station. When he has his guitar on his lap and the open case presented for donations, he indicates you can sit beside him. You lie down, half on the towel and half off, and rest your head on the thigh not propping up his guitar.

"Korra, the floor is filthy."

Eyes closed, you grin.

"Shhhh. It's the first day of spring."

"Does that mean hygiene is irrelevant or...?"

"Shhhhhhhhh."

You hear his sigh and don't need to open your eyes to imagine his eye roll. He tunes his guitar. The sound of dozens of echoing footsteps brush by your ears like white noise.

"So will it be N*SYNC or Ricky Martin today?" he teases.

"Hey! It is not my fault it takes a decade for pop culture to reach the South Pole. I disclosed that to you in strict confidence!"

"So Ricky Martin."

Eyes still closed, you pull out your pouch of coins and drop a handful of jiao into his case.

"Backstreet Boys, you jerk."

His leg settles under your head as you feel him lean over and plant a kiss on your forehead. You grin even wider. Then he straightens up and starts playing, the sound of the guitar warm and enveloping your skin.

You smile for no one in particular in the stone tomb of the subway. You keep smiling thirty songs later after you've run out of coins and Mako still keeps playing for you.

When Tenzin steps off the K Train and spots you on Mako's lap instead of at Asami's house, he grounds you until next Harmonic Convergence.

 **FIN**

* * *

Author's Note: Originally published on AO3 on 5/1/15. Very late Makorra Gift Exchange backup gift for _theo-oface_! Also, first story I've ever written in second person POV! I spun my wheel of LoK headcanons and AUs… and then decided to use everything I had on the wheel in one story. Story took so long to finish because I got so freaking carried away including my biggest headcanon of what a COMPLETELY modern update of Avatar universe entails.

And in case it wasn't too obvious, modern Republic City is basically New York, complete with five boroughs for each culture of benders: Dragon Flats for the Nonbenders (modeled on Queens), Phoenix Heights for the Firebenders (modeled on Northern Manhattan), Temple Island for the Airbenders (based off Staten Island), Kuei Gardens for the Earthbenders (aka the Bronx), and La Ridge for the Waterbenders (a model of Brooklyn).


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